People mourn the death of a 24-year-old Syrian Army lieutenant, who was known by the name of Abu Layth, in a village in the coastal province of Latakia. The soldier had been killed in an ambush at the other end of the country. Support for the government was strong in the region, and the soldier and his family were Alawites, members of the same religious group as Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president. Abu Layth was the first soldier from his village to fall in a conflict that had been racking the country for two years. Fatalities at the time were thought to exceed 100,000, but figures were extremely hard to verify because of lack of access on the ground to independent observers.

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Andrea Bruce is a documentary photographer, covering social issues in conflict areas, focusing mostly on Iraq and Afghanistan. For eight years, she worked as a staff photographer for The Washington Post and authored a weekly column called "Unseen Iraq." In 2010, she became a freelance photographer in the VII Network.